Bear with us, please. The Cape is all a-twitter over the sighting of a bruin on the town’s north side, but nobody is texting about the turkey spotted a few weeks ago at the busy intersection of Route 28 and Bearse’s Way in Hyannis. Like, how often does that happen, too?

There it was standing with feathers a-flutter at the southeast corner curb during the hectic commuting hour with cars whizzing by. Like any other pedestrian, this Tom was waiting for a clear shot to cross the highway to get to the other side, as they say.

The light went green, Tom saw a seed or something on the sidewalk and stooped to investigate, and we had to drive off without experiencing how, or if, it got to the other side. The last time we saw semi-wild turkeys, two of them were walking around a Maya family’s house in a Mexico puebla, and we thought that was something else. But Bearse’s Way and Route 28?

Then there continues to be some coyote sightings in our villages along with rabbits hopping across lawns or, ears ever on the alert, munching on clover; ducks nonchalantly stepping on quacks in the sidewalk, the sound of a rare fisher cat piercing the ominous silence of the night, a raccoon thumping from a tree to a rooftop looking for lodgings inside some lucky person’s chimney or attic, a misdirected snapping turtle trudging off the beaten path or tourists seeking directions for the Kennedy compound way off-track in West Barnstable.

But a real live bear roaming the flora, fauna and bird feeders along Route 6A is extraordinary. Is it looking for a Honey Dew Donuts outlet? Or perhaps heading for Town Councilor Ann Canedy’s place in Barnstable Village to help her claw her way back into the council majority’s good graces?

Whatever that remarkable visitor is doing here, it has energized emergency personnel who are communicating their wisdom on bear etiquette; that is, don’t try to shake hands with it or invite it home for dinner.

Not to bear down on you, but the only time this writer has seen a real live bear was in 1952 in Kodiak, Alaska. A few Navy crewmates from FASRON 114 (Fleet Air Service Squadron) were on holiday in the hills for a day during the salmon run and fishing for lunch when one of the crewmates put finger to lip while pointing downriver with the fishing pole where two bears were slapping fish out of the river. Shhhh!

We didn’t bother them. They didn’t bother us. Lesson Learned. We told the story of our sighting – not so unusual there and then – at the fishermen’s bar in town that night when one of the somber looking Aleut Indians, the name being derived from the Chukchi “aliat” or “island,” downed a vodka straight, wiped his lips on the sleeve of his worn jacket and told us of his encounter once with a raging Kodiak bear, the largest of the species.

“I went up to Old Woman plateau to get me some ptarmigan (grouse) and do it like a sport…with a .22, not a shotgun. I was crossing a field of high grass and as I neared the wood line, I came face to face with an enraged 11-footer, front paws clawing at the air, drooling, fangs bared, eyes red hot like fire. I knew it was protecting cubs and I froze in my tracks, just hoping it would retreat. It was screaming at me, but I couldn’t move. It wasn’t more than 35 feet away. I began to shake. The bear began to charge at me.”

Eyes wide open, our attention fixated, we bought him another vodka. We were thinking it could have been us. He downed his drink in one long gulp, coughed, and continued.

“Instinct kicked in. I raised the carbine without aiming and fired at the hulk coming at me. I don’t know if I hit it, but it kept charging as I jumped aside just out of its grasp as it slid by me. I turned, and it turned. Now it was only 20 feet away and howling a beastly howl, it began charging right away. This time I aimed quickly and fired as the massive hulk, must have been a thousand pounder, raged toward me as I again barely jumped aside as he slid past and….”

“Geez” interrupted one of our crew, “’Weren’t you scared?”

The old fisherman, eyes wild with seeming fright, retorted: “Scared? Scared? What do you think the bear was sliding on?”

Whereupon the wizened locals slouched over the bar erupted in guffaws. The old salt had netted another catch.